A project to beautify Jazz Square, the historic home of many Boston jazz clubs at the intersection of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues, has won a $50,000 grant from the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture.
Jazz Square was officially designated by the city in 2022. The current project, spearheaded by Claremont Neighborhood Association President Bob Barney, aims to honor the area’s history through installing art and hosting live music events.
“It was probably the epicenter of jazz in New England at one point,” Barney said. “One of the key things that we’re hoping to do is to bring back jazz to this area through concerts where we can pay some of the artists in today's contemporary jazz to play.”
After the designation of Jazz Square, Barney began to work with the Boston Jazz Foundation and Northeastern University’s Reckonings Project, which documents Black history in Boston, to apply for a Neighborhood and Downtown Activation Grant through the Mayor’s Office. The group completed its application in March and received the $50,000 grant on May 28.
The team, dubbed the Jazz Square Working Group also included local institutions like Wally’s Cafe Jazz Club. Wally’s features live music every day of the year and has been family-run since 1947. Frank Poindexter, the club’s current manager, wrote a letter in support of Barney’s original petition.
“At one time in the 30s and 40s, many of the prominent jazz clubs were located in the vicinity of Massachusetts Avenue and Columbus Avenue,” Poindexter said. “You had the Savoy Ballroom, you had the Hi-Hat, Wally’s Café and a few other clubs. Bob Barney, he’s done a lot of great work in the neighborhood even prior to this, in terms of getting that section recognized for its history of jazz.”
The group has one year to spend the funds, the majority of which will go to hosting jazz performers at Wally’s and other venues throughout the area. Some of the money will be used to decorate the square with jazz themed art.
“We want to engage with neighbors and jazz experts and folks that actually were displaced from this area because of gentrification, to get their perspective on what should be reflected there,” Barney said. “So part of it would probably be recognizing institutions like the Hi-Hat or Wally's, but we would use those to highlight the fact that this was such a strong jazz area of Boston, and Massachusetts, and New England.”
“The work is being done every day to keep this music alive,” Poindexter said. “It's lost its importance. Younger people have transitioned to liking other forms of music. You got hip hop, you got soul, you got rock and roll and all these different things. But a lot of those genres are actually based on jazz. We are still playing a part in the development of this music form that was created in the United States, and due to us being essentially located next to Berklee College of Music, developing musicians, period.”
